Category: You Tube

Decision Making.


Yesterday I started reading a book which was gifted to me by a friend and a statement caught my eye. “A Professor in a School of Management who has written a book on Decision Making, was offered positions in four different organisations and consulted a friend on which one to choose. The friend smiled and said, “Why ask me? You have written a book on Decision Making.” The Professor responds, “But, this is real life!”.

As it happens so often in my life two things happened one after the other after having read that little vignette.

A class mate from Business School is visiting Pune and, my two classmates residing now in Pune and I met up with him over tea at my club last evening. During the conversations, we naturally talked about our two years at the school and some of the faculty members.

Some Alumni have collected funds for instituting an annual award and the visiting friend suggested to a local friend, an academic, that he should suggest a criteria to decide on awarding a gold medal to an alumnus. This led to some hilarious discussions on decision making and naturally no conclusion could be arrived at.

This morning I received a clip via WhatsApp which led me to an interview with Kevin O’Leary of Shark Tank fame, which too talks about decision making which I am sure will amuse as well as rile some readers.

Nostalgia 6. Badge Of Honour.

My regular readers will be aware of one of my physical limitations that has bothered me for a dozen years now. It is called Right Ulnar Palsy and it makes it difficult for me to hold things tightly in my right hand. This caused two problems for me earlier today and the second one is this.

That is me with a stained white t-shirt unable to take a better selfie with my right hand.

The first one was what caused the yellow stains in the first place. I was eating mangoes as dessert for lunch. Since our cook was off on holiday today, our char cut the mangoes. Had the cook been there, she would have cut the mangoes without the skin and the stone completely scraped off and I could have simply had the fruit from a bowl using a spoon.

With the mangoes cut differently, I had to eat the mangoes like this:

After seeing the first slice being eaten if you go to 1.40 minutes, you will see how the flesh from the stone is consumed.

My ulnar palsy played up and the stone slipped out of my hand and fell on my t-shirt. That is the stain that you see on the first image.

Why nostalgia?

During my school days, as soon as the mango season started, the first classmate with a stained vest under the uniform shirt was given a badge of honour by the rest of the class. One of course had to deliberately stain the vest to earn this badge! I never did get the badge of honour though as, I could not afford to get the vest stained for fear of punishment from a martinet for a father!

Have you had some mangoes lately? How did you eat them?

Food, Exotic Sweets.

For those of you who do not know, I am an Indian with roots in Tamil Nadu. Yesterday was Tamil New Year Day. Rather than go through the hassles of making a traditional sweet to bring in the new year, I decided to get something that my daughter in love would not have ever had before. Since my late wife had her roots in Andhra Pradesh, I decided to get something that she had liked very much and had ordered for it well in time.  The goodies came from a village called Atreyapuram and are called Putharekulu.
The rolls that you see inside are not tissue paper but, look like it.  They are sheets made out of rice and this video will show how it is done.

The version that I procured contains different types of sweet stuffing and one of them exclusively dry fruits.

Incidentally, as I write this, it is Bengali New Year. My daughter in love is half Bengali and half Maharashtrian. The Bengali half, her mother, is with us to celebrate both the new years. She in turn has made a traditional milk / vermicelli sweet dish called Payesh for the occasion.

These are the most satisfying treats that I am having after a very long time. Brings back many memories including one of actually seeing and helping in making putharekulu being made at my late wife’s maternal home. And the Payesh is the icing on the cake too! Total bliss.

No, I Am Very Much Alive!

The day before yesterday was Makar Shankaranthi. It was also the birthday of a now 72 year old ex colleague of mine KPS,  from Ahmedabad.  A very dynamic young man when I had first met in 1972.

I sent a birthday greetings to him on WhatsApp and expected a thank you response from him which did not come the whole day, nor was WhatsApp showing the blue ticks showing that the message had been seen by the recipient.

It had still not been seen yesterday morning. I was beginning to get worried as people of my age do when messages do not get responded to.

I rang up again at 1.00 PM when to my great relief he answered but when he found out who it was calling went almost into a shock as he had received an Obit Notice about my demise just last week from some other ex-colleagues still around. I told him that I was most decidedly not calling from Vaikuntha and that I was very much alive and kicking. I also chided him for not responding to my message and two earlier phone calls when he answered that he was busy with Makara Shankaranthi matters. This little clip being the most significant part of the festival and which had kept him occupied.

He was flying kites!

Later in the evening he sent me a message as to how the confusion took place. Another ex colleague with a name very similar to my surname but of two first and surname had died last week and all of us got the obit notice about his demise. Since KPS read the notice without his reading glasses and rather absentmindedly, he had mistaken the notice to be for me demise.

 

Has anything like this happened to you?

Fun With Language 1.

This exchange in WhatsApp took place between my friend SD and me earlier today.

SD: This is a cake…Can anyone believe it!!!Great creativity…Paithani saree cake with Kolhapuri jewellery made by cake artist Tanvir Palishkar at J W Marriot Pune.Amazing talent,still can not believe this is a cake.🌹🌹🌹🌹👆👆👆👆

Me: Yes, it takes the cake!

For skeptics, here is a link to the Youtube clip showing the full range of saree cakes.